July, 2006 Meeting: Brian Horne: Herping the Daly River and other adventures in the Northern Territory, Australia

Brian Horne:"Herping the Daly River and other adventures in the Northern Territory, Australia"

As most of you will recall, Brian Horne gave an excellent and entertaining presentation for our group last year. His talk was so enjoyed, as a matter of fact, that I approched him about having a "Brian Horne herping adventures" talk as annual event.

Here's the good and the bad news:

Brian has accepted a position with the San Diego Zoo.
He will soon be leaving the country to study crocodilians, and will be there
for the next 3-5 years! Brian was good enough to agree to talk to us before he departs. This time, it will be about herping adventures in Austrailia. You won't want to miss this!

Meet the Speaker:

Brian Horne has been field herping in such exotic places as Australia, India, South Africa, and Central America, not to mention the U.S!

The following is a short auto-biography from Brian Horne:

I feel fortunate to have turned a boyhood fascination of reptiles and amphibians into a career that has given me opportunities to travel to all the world?s continents except Antarctica. I was born and raised in rural Virginia in a small community near Fredericksburg, Virginia. My father was instrumental in my earliest endeavors with reptiles, as he gave me my first pet snake, a beautiful juvenile eastern kingsnake at the age of four! My father wanted to instill in me the same appreciation for reptiles and amphibians he had gained from herping in central Florida in the 1950?s with his favorite uncle and occasionally with Roger Conant. Thus, my father encouraged me to spend my youth searching for box turtles, fence lizards, and rat snakes in the wood lots, abandoned cow pastures, and freshwater wetlands along the Rappahannock River. And, my gracious mother permitted me to keep quite the menagerie in her house.

Since my early childhood, I have been ever expanding my field herping experiences. My good friend Larry Rouche introduced me to my first Carolina Bay while herping in coastal North Carolina in the late 1980?s. In the early 90?s, I started visiting Guanacaste, Costa Rica and have since returned 4 times over the past 14 years. However, my field herping reached new levels when I started my Masters in southern Louisiana. As a graduate student of Rich Seigel, I had many great opportunities in the southern US (LA, MS, AL, FL, GA, SC, and NC), as well as the desert southwest (west Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona). But some of my fondest herp memories come from flipping amphiumas off the frontage roads along Lake Pontchartrain?s north shore during tropical storms.

Though I thoroughly enjoyed the herping and life style of the Deep South, I longed to be back in the tropics. Therefore, for my dissertation research I conducted a four-year field project in the Los Tuxtlas region of southern Veracruz, Mexico. With its high rates of endemism and lush evergreen rainforests, Los Tuxtlas is a gem of upland habitat amidst the vast wetlands of Veracruz and Tabasco.

In the years to come I hope to continue with my field investigations on the reproductive biology of Neotropical turtles in addition to restarting my studies on the sawback map turtles of the US.